The helicopter will be an increasingly comfortable means of transport, but not only. By reducing noise and vibrations inside the cabin, the pilot workload can be reduced, search and rescue tasks are more effective and the quality of health services in the ambulances is improved. It is about the development of new technologies for the futuristic helicopter Leonardo and the Polytechnic of Milan are expanding their collaboration, started in 2016 with the signing of Innovation Hub, a framework agreement with a multi-year value. The studies will also focus on the development of technologies on the use of innovative mechanical coupling components based on new, lighter materials, which will bring advantages in terms of production costs and ease of installation. A further research project on the predictive maintenance of the helicopter health status is about to start within 2018.
The agreement, in addition to innovative solutions related to helicopters, concerns other areas of research that pertain to the business of Leonardo. The partnership between the company and the Milanese university reaffirms the importance of collaboration between large companies and universities of excellence as a factor in determining development and economic and cultural growth.
"The Politecnico di Milano joins in a structured way to the major industrial companies to make its research environment more and more permeable to the needs of companies - says Ferruccio Resta, Rector of the University - the Innovation Hub created with Leonardo is bringing real and meaningful results that confirm our commitment and identify us once again as an engine of innovation in the country-system ".
"In Leonardo, we invest in continuous and increasingly collaborative innovation - underlines Alessandro Profumo, Leonardo's Managing Director - to develop increasingly effective and sustainable solutions for our customers and for the country system. The multi-year collaboration with the Milan Polytechnic is a concrete example. By putting our wealth of skills in line with those of the academic world - adds Profumo - we can accelerate the processes of innovation and technological development, create synergy and mutual benefit to support the competitiveness of Italy ".
The collaboration between the Milan Polytechnic and Leonardo is aimed at realizing concrete innovation projects, of which the following are important examples.
The object of the research will be the innovative mechanical coupling components based on new materials, essential to allow the transfer of loads from the propeller to the main transmission box of the helicopter. This will allow a significant simplification of the mechanical system, thanks to the use of a single flexible component rather than a complex system.
Through the project Comfort, Leonardo and Politecnico di Milano are also developing technologies to reduce the vibrations and noise of helicopters. The reference platform for the study is represented by the AW139. The research activities focus on three main areas: the rotor, from which the vibrations come, the transmission constraint systems, through which these vibrations are spread to the helicopter structure reducing the and finally to the cabin itself search.
The objective The final aim of the program is to demonstrate a significant improvement in the reduction of vibration and internal noise, through a coordinated use of passive and active systems. The development of solutions suitable for achieving the objective includes simulation activities and experimental research validation.
Within the framework of the agreement, an innovative predictive maintenance project for the state of health of HUMS (Health & Usage Monitoring Systems) helicopters, a technology in continuous progress, will start within the year, which will allow to indicate in advance the operating anomalies allowing an increase in safety levels and a reduction in operating costs.
Furthermore, as part of the Innovation Hub, e-GEOS, a company owned by Telespazio (80%) and the Italian Space Agency (20%), has signed a further agreement for the joint development of innovative satellite data analytics products and services . The partnership will allow e-GEOS to offer new and powerful tools for the detailed analysis of our Planet. These analyzes support specific market sectors: from insurance to precision agriculture, from oil & gas to defense, from emergency management to all activities in which the monitoring of assets distributed on a large scale is strategic. e-GEOS in partnership with the Department of Electronics, Information and Bioengineering (DEIB) of the Politecnico di Milano, will be able to reveal insights, trends and other information contained in the satellite data integrated with information generated by other sources.